Arms Embargo

* France says status quo favours Syrian government * Germany fears lifting embargo would fuel violence * U.N.'s Brahimi warns Syria could end up worse than Somalia By Adrian Croft and Justyna Pawlak BRUSSELS, March 11 (Reuters) - France urged the European Union to look again at lifting an arms embargo on Syria to help rebels fighting President Bashar al-Assad, putting it at odds with Germany which said such a step could spread conflict in the region. ...

By Michelle Nichols NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged the Security Council on Friday to impose an arms embargo on Syria, describing foreign powers and groups as "irresponsible" for giving military support to the warring parties in the three-year conflict. In a speech on Syria at the Asia Society in New York, Ban also said: "I welcome recent contacts between Iran and Saudi Arabia and hope that they will build confidence and reverse...

GENEVA (Reuters) - Syria forces are not complying with a deal to halt violence and world powers should take a strong stand if a U.N. ceasefire plan fails, including imposing an arms embargo, a spokeswoman for the opposition Syrian National Council said on Tuesday. Basma Kodmani said there was no sign yet of government troops complying with an agreement to withdraw from urban areas on Tuesday since arrests, house demolitions and shelling were continuing in various parts of...

UNITED NATIONS/ABIDJAN (Reuters) - The U.N. Security Council is set to partially ease a decade-long arms embargo on Ivory Coast and lift a ban on diamond exports, diplomats said on Friday, despite claims by U.N. experts the measure failed to stop illicit trafficking of rough diamonds. The West African country, emerging from a decade-long crisis that culminated in a brief war in 2011, has been pressing the Security Council to end the diamond embargo that...

LONDON (Reuters) - Somalia's armed forces have not received "a single bullet" despite the partial lifting of a United Nations arms embargo because the East African country lacks funds, its defense minister said on Wednesday. Somalia's new leaders aim to train and equip a professional army of around 28,000 soldiers within three years but are hamstrung by a lack of cash, Abdihakim Fiqi said during a trip to London to drum up donor support. "The arms embargo was...

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United Nations is seeking an exemption from a U.N. Security Council arms embargo on Ivory Coast so it can ship weapons and military equipment across the East African nation to its peacekeeping mission in landlocked Mali, a spokesman said on Thursday. The statement came after U.N. sanctions monitors called for the world body to stop allowing arms to be shipped to the U.N. mission in Mali, known as MINUSMA, through Ivory Coast after...

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missiles have been trafficked out of Libya to Chad, Mali, Tunisia, Lebanon and likely Central African Republic, with attempts made to send them to Syrian opposition groups, according to a U.N. report on Tuesday. An independent panel of experts monitoring U.N. sanctions on Libya, that include an arms embargo imposed at the start of the 2011 uprising that ousted leader Muammar Gaddafi, reported that...

* Mohamud's election in 2012 seen as new start * Resignations of central bank governors rattled donors * President says working to improve financial management * Federal plans hindered by distrust of central government By Edmund Blair and Aaron Maasho ADDIS ABABA, Jan 30 (Reuters) - Somalia's president said he wanted the U.N. Security Council to extend a partial lifting of an arms embargo beyond March when the exemption is due to end ...

* Mohamud's election in 2012 seen as new start * Resignations of central bank governors rattled donors * President says working to improve financial management * Federal plans hindered by distrust of central government By Edmund Blair and Aaron Maasho ADDIS ABABA, Jan 30 (Reuters) - Somalia's president said he wanted the U.N. Security Council to extend a partial lifting of an arms embargo beyond March when the exemption is due to end ...

UNITED NATIONS, March 6 (Reuters) - The U.N. Security Council agreed on Wednesday to lift a decades-old arms embargo on Somalia's government for one year, allowing the country to buy light weapons in a bid to strengthen its security forces to combat al Qaeda-linked Islamist fighters. The resolution, unanimously adopted by the 15-member council, leaves in place a ban on surface-to-air missiles, larger-calibre guns, howitzers, cannons and mortars, anti-tank ...

By An editorial by the Colorado Springs Gazette Telegraph | February 10, 1994

Saturday's carnage in the central market in Sarajevo, where an exploding artillery shell killed a reported 68 people, has raised the volume of calls for Western nations to "do something." One immediate step should be to lift the U.N.-imposed arms embargo that prevents Muslim combatants in the two-year-old civil war from fully defending themselves. Since the war began for territory in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serb and Croatian fighters have had ready access to weapons from their ethnic kin in neighboring...

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European Union foreign ministers could discuss the option of imposing an arms embargo on Egypt, when they meet on Wednesday to map out a response to violence in Egypt, a senior EU official said on Monday. Speaking after a meeting of senior of diplomats in Brussels, EU special envoy Bernardino Leon said no options were ruled out but the European Union had yet to decide how to exert pressure on Cairo's military-backed rulers. "Foreign...

LUXEMBOURG, April 23 (Reuters) - The European Union agreed on Monday to suspend most of its sanctions against Myanmar for a year in recognition of sweeping democratic reforms after half a century of military rule, EU diplomats said. The decision, due to go into effect later this week, was taken by EU foreign ministers at a meeting in Luxembourg. It rewards a dramatic shift in Myanmar that has seen veteran pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi...

UNITED NATIONS, June 21 (Reuters) - Increasing the flow of weapons to Syria's government and rebel forces will most likely cause an increase in war crimes in a two-year-old civil war that has killed more than 90,000 people, a U.N. human rights investigator warned on Friday. "States who provide arms have responsibilities in terms of the eventual use of those arms to commit ... war crimes or crimes against humanity," said Paulo Pinheiro, who chairs a U.N. ...

The Syrian rebels battling President Bashar Assad's forces are on the ropes. They've lost one strategic city and may be on the brink of losing a stronghold in Aleppo to government forces, fortified by Iran-backed Hezbollah fighters. Assad's enabler-in-chief, Russian President Vladimir Putin, warns the U.S. and its allies against helping the rebels even as he props up the Syrian strongman with an advanced anti-aircraft missile system and Moscow's veto power in the U.N. Security Council.